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SOPA Resistance Day begins at Ars

Why Ars Technica opposes the Stop Online Piracy Act.

Today is SOPA Resistance Day at Ars. Sites across the 'Net, from reddit to the Internet Archive, from Wikipedia to Google, are protesting the excesses of the Stop Online Piracy Act. SOPA remains a flawed bill that treats piracy as an existential threat to the US economy and to a sacred class of rightsholders—and in doing so loses all perspective on appropriate remedies. The discussion is absolutely unbalanced.

Many sites have chosen to go dark (i.e., offline) today, a stance we respect—but it's not the right path for us. Ars Technica has, for 14 years, tried to be an information resource, and the most appropriate response from Ars is to provide even more information on the legislation, how you can fight it, and what's really at stake.

Our normal publishing schedule has been frozen in carbonite. For a limited time, we're turning our attention to SOPA and its Senate cousin, the PROTECT IP Act. What remains in each bill after the managers' amendments and the removal of DNS blocking? What would we like to see in a vastly improved SOPA 2.0? Is there a way forward?

Most importantly, what can you do to make your voice heard? Writing a boring note to your Senator won't get the job done. So we're going to show you our tips on really ruffling feathers en masse. Some people are already celebrating the death of SOPA, but we all know this is far, far from over.

We'll be covering all these stories and more throughout the day, and we'll be documenting the protests and the responses to them. Come back in the morning for the first installment of our Fighting Back Guide.

A few words of sanity

Piracy is an emotional issue, but it's important to note what it is not: a war between the "creators" and the "technologists." Ars Technica lives or dies by our content and its copyright. So does publisher Tim O'Reilly. So does musician Peter Gabriel. Yet all of us oppose SOPA. It's time for supporters of SOPA and SOPA-like legislation to drop the conveniently facile caricatures they have of their opponents. Millions of us believe in intellectual property as a fair concept that can have an important place in our society. And for a subset of us, it's our intellectual property that's at risk anyway.

There's room to build a reasonable consensus for dealing with the "worst of the worst" online. But that means going back to the drawing board and bringing the tech community and Internet users to the table before legislation is drafted. Creating a sudden "emergency" around the issue and using only the perspective of the biggest rightsholders as a starting point is no way to legislate on key Internet issues—and band-aid patches to such a flawed approach aren't going to fix that.

SOPA needs to be stopped—and then we can start the hyperbole-free conversation that the content industries and the White House both say they want.

We challenge the White House, the Congress, and all supporters of SOPA: engage with us and with the Internet community on assessing the real threat of piracy and the appropriate response to it. This isn't a PR stunt. Ars Technica has the longest track record online of taking these matters seriously and listening to both sides. We can save you a lot of time by pointing out the areas in which your failure is all but assured—and point the way forward on areas where we can find common ground. We'll have more later today on ways to move forward with a strategy that isn't dead before you think of it. Meanwhile, the smartest, most tech savvy people on the Internet will be here, waiting for your next move.

Ken Fisher
Ken is the founder & Editor-in-Chief of Ars Technica. A veteran of the IT industry and a scholar of antiquity, Ken studies the emergence of intellectual property regimes and their effects on culture and innovation. Emailken@arstechnica.com//Twitter@kenfisher

I would like to second the comment on pride. I am extremely proud to be a regular reader of this website over the last 8 years of my life. Ars has my full support and I intend to subscribe as soon as my bank account isn't negative again.

Question? Why the continued demonstration since the bill has been withdrawn?

On the contrary - despite claims that SOPA has been "shelved pending consensus", Lamar Smith has stated that the bill will be going for markup in February. He's not listening to reason, or to his colleagues in Congress; only His Master's Voice, from the MPAA.

It's a token gesture - but I've made the article's graphic my Facebook picture (is that okay, in all seriousness, don't want to violate Ars' IP - wouldn't that be ironic)...it's something! (I've also signed a billion petitions, but that doesn't mean much either ) Very much looking forward to the ideas and suggestions of what else can be done!

hate the black theme from a readability standpoint. But goddamn, I love it.

Kharma - it is not a demonstration. The Blackouts that are happening today are the maturation of a net culture that is finally realizing that it is part of the greater world out there. It is a proverbial line in the sand. NO, this far but not farther!!

Ars is asking - Ok, what then? You have said your statement, so what now?

Excellent effort Ars, and it's been really heartening to see so many sites gathered together over this. No matter how depressing things can seem sometimes, I firmly believe that there is room for people to make things better.

Also it's great to see the black back again as the default, if only for a day. I can't even remember how many years it has been since that changed but it's a real blast to the past .

Edit: With respect, I don't agree with this though:

Quote:

Writing a boring note to your Senator won't get the job done.

While doing more is better, written letters absolutely matter and they definitely get attention. For obvious reasons very very few people bother to write letters. More will call, and of course the laziest of all is email (though any contact is better then nothing). At the least sending a note represents a certain level of commitment, the kind that tends to cause voting even in primaries where elections can literally turn on single digit votes. If you want to encourage other stuff that's awesome, but I don't think you should discourage mass letter bombardment either.

I sincerely hope that this reaction is noted by those above the **AA organizations and its paid politicians who are trying to push these bills onto us. I appreciate Ars not going dark but choosing to educate the masses on just what this bill means to those of us who are both inside and outside the USA.

Posted my own protest page on the home page of my site. I am in full support of your position.

DAMN - I just checked Wikipedia and they told me to contact my representative. Even had a simple link to help me do so. Then they reminded me I live in Washington, DC and thus have no representative. Taxation Without Representation!

Wtf? European power and usb plugs? Those both have next to nothing to do with SOPA. >_< Ethernet plugs! C'mon! Get your head in the game.

Oh oh! But, you see, SOPA has an international effect. We'll have more on that tomorrow.

Indeed. Thanks to the trifecta of Visa, Mastercard and Paypal all being US companies, any law that makes US companies stop business with a site will end up cutting off all money. This even if a page specifically do not deal with US customers.

Registered just to say: I'm proud you guys have taken such a strong stance. The Wikipedia blackout really motivated me to get involved and I've signed between 5 and 10 petitions in the last 30 minutes.

Love the stuff on this site and can't wait to read what you all have to say today. Thanks for keeping the information flowing. It's definitely the right approach for this place.

Wtf? European power and usb plugs? Those both have next to nothing to do with SOPA. >_< Ethernet plugs! C'mon! Get your head in the game. :P

Oh oh! But, you see, SOPA has an international effect. We'll have more on that tomorrow. :)

Indeed. Thanks to the trifecta of Visa, Mastercard and Paypal all being US companies, any law that makes US companies stop business with a site will end up cutting off all money. This even if a page specifically do not deal with US customers.

Yah, I get that it has an international effect, but USB? A USB modem maybe? An ethernet plug woulda made so much more sense. ;p

I am all for being against SOPA and the theme of today being to protest it across the entire web, but Wiki and other sites should just do the full-page splash thing AND THEN LET ME ACCESS THE SITE.

Keeping me from accessing the site entirely is stupid and not going to make me do anything different - the Ars way is better - make it loud and clear but allow normal site operations.

Just my opinion, but even if 24 hours without site X isnt a big deal, there are better ways to handle it than attempting to strong arm your audience into doing something. Just educate them and be on your way - EXACTLY like what Ars is doing...